title: Quantitative analysis of molecular-level DNA crystal growth on a 2D surface.
abstract: Crystallization is an essential process for understanding a molecule's aggregation behavior. It provides basic information on crystals, including their nucleation and growth processes. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has become an interesting building material because of its remarkable properties for constructing various shapes of submicron-scale DNA crystals by self-assembly. The recently developed substrate-assisted growth (SAG) method produces fully covered DNA crystals on various substrates using electrostatic interactions and provides an opportunity to observe the overall crystallization process. In this study, we investigated quantitative analysis of molecular-level DNA crystallization using the SAG method. Coverage and crystal size distribution were studied by controlling the external parameters such as monomer concentration, annealing temperature, and annealing time. Rearrangement during crystallization was also discussed. We expect that our study will provide overall picture of the fabrication process of DNA crystals on the charged substrate and promote practical applications of DNA crystals in science and technology.
authors.affiliation: Sungkyunkwan Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440-746, Korea.
authors.forename: Junwye
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Shogo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hamada
authors.forename: Si Un
authors.initials: SU
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.forename: Rashid
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Amin
authors.forename: Junyoung
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Son
authors.forename: Sreekantha Reddy
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Dugasani
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Murata
authors.forename: Sung Ha
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Park
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D004247:DNA